Sorry for taking so long to update—I've been (and still am) out of town—but I finally decided to pay for internet access at the local café and get this thing uploaded. Hope ya'll enjoy!

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The communicator beeped, and Wade began to speak before Kim even had a chance to acknowledge him. "Kim, I wanted to give you a heads up."

"A heads up for what?" she asked, startled by the somewhat worried expression on his face.

"You have company coming. Four jet fighters are closing on you... I'm trying to find out what they are doing, but all their transmissions are pretty heavily encrypted."

"Probably friends of whoever we took the helicopter from," Kim said grimly, looking over at Ron and rolling her eyes.

"You're probably right. Kim, does Ron know anything about the defensive avionics on the helicopter?"

Kim glanced at Ron, and it was readily apparent he hadn't heard Wade's question over the din of the cockpit. "RON! Do you know anything about the defensive avionics on this helicopter?"

"THE WHAT?"

Kim didn't bother to clarify for him. "He doesn't have a clue," she told Wade, shaking her head slowly. "You don't think they would actually shoot at us, do you?"

"I'll know in just a minute," Wade answered. He was already typing furiously. "I just remembered General Simms gave us a back door code in case we ever needed to know about any specific military operations."

"General Simms? From Area 51, right? Remind me to send him a thank you."

"Will do. He's actually an operations director at Central Command now... head honcho type. I'm almost in.... here we go, dispatch to 113th Air National Guard Squadron... directs four fighters to intercept you at best speed, establish contact, and escort you back to a military base."

"We can't go to a military base. Drakken is out there, and poised to strike!"

"You don't have much choice, Kim... they're authorized to use deadly force."

"I heard that," Ron blurted out from the right seat.

"Let me call General Simms and see what I can do. Until then, try and get those fighters on the radio and talk to them till we can work something out."

"Got it, Wade," Kim answered somewhat nervously. Here she was, in a helicopter that was practically an antique, over the ocean, being chased by jet fighters, and worst of all, with Ron as the pilot.

General Simms stood in the command center, monitoring the console as the four blue blips representing his jets converged on the slow moving red dot that used to be his helicopter.

An aide tapped the general on his shoulder, whispering into his ear that he had a call from the Pentagon. Reluctantly, Simms broke away from the screen and walked towards the communications table at the far end of the room, donning a hands-free headset. "General Simms."

"Hi, uh, General... this is Wade, Kim Possible's friend."

"How did you get on a secure pentagon line?" the general asked in an accusing tone.

"That's not important right now. I really need to talk with you."

"Son, this is not a good time."

"But, I know..." Wade's voice disappeared as Simms pressed the disconnect button. As much as he'd like to help the kids with their little save the world schemes, he was far too busy at the moment. His responsibilities as a the senior officer at CENTCOM had to come first.

The jet flew by again, trailing an invisible stream of wake turbulence that rocked the helicopter violently. Ron struggled to maintain control, unaccustomed to flying a helicopter, let alone dealing with severe and unpredictable turbulence.

Kim's fingers continued to fly frantically over the radio, but despite her best efforts, all the lights remained off. "Of all the things that could be wrong on this trash heap of a helicopter," she mumbled to herself, "the radio doesn't work." Another fighter jet whisked by, its afterburner shooting out a plume of flames. The jet climbed and rolled to the left before disappearing from sight. Suddenly, and alarm came on in the cokpit, one so loud and blaring it seemed to overpower the sound of the rotor.

"WHAT IS THAT?" Kim yelled to Ron, hoping that somehow her friend would have the slightest idea of what was going on.

"I DON'T KNOW, BUT IT SOUNDS NOT GOOD!"

"General Simms," a young lieutenant reported, "Bravo two reports AIM-9 lock and requests permission for weapons release."

"Standby one for weapons release," Simms ordered, looking at the display board. One fighter was positioned ahead of the helicopter, two were trailing it, staggered slightly to the left and right, and the fourth was directly behind it, positioned for a perfect shot with a heat seeking missile. As he watched, the lead fighter broke off, slipping into formation behind the other four so that the missile wouldn't have any chance of inadvertently locking onto it's hot engine.

"General, you have a phone message from the White House," an aide said, handing the general a headset which he quickly donned.

"This is Gen-"

"I know about the helicopter," an all-to-familiar voice blurted out.

"Wade? Again? I thought I told you I... wait... the helicopter?"

"Yes, Kim Possible is on that helicopter. Her and Ron."

"Ron? Who is he?" the General asked.

"That's not important. But they need the helicopter. Dr. Drakken is up to something big, and that is their only way to stop him."

"You want me to let her steal a multi-million dollar piece of equipment from the US military?" Simms asked, his voice clearly annoyed.

"If it weren't for her, you wouldn't be around today, General," Wade said, surprising himself with the forcefulness of his own tone. "This is the same Kim, and the same Drakken. She needs to go. You know she can stop him, you've seen it. You have to let her go."

Simms felt a lump growing in his throat. He knew that letting them go was not procedure, and it could end his career. But if there was one thing nearly forty years of military service had taught General Simms, it was you had to go with your gut. He pulled the headset off and turned to the communications officer. "Call them off. Call off the planes."

"Sir?" the officer asked, aghast at this sudden change of orders.

"NOW, captain!" Simms demanded.

The officer nodded his head. He turned to his console and keyed up the satellite relay to the aircraft. "Bravo two, bravo two, this is CENTCOM. Stand down and safe weapons."

"CENTCOM," a voice crackled back across the speaker, "confirm you want me to disengage?" The pilot's surprise was clear despite the poor quality of reception.

"That is affirmative."

"Bravo two has disengaged," the pilot reported.

"Bring them home," Simms said before walking back to his consul.

"Yes sir. Bravo flight, return to base."

The fighters streaked by the left side of the helicopter in two sets of two as they climbed slowly in a gentle left turn. Kim felt a wave of relief spread throughout her body. Ron exhaled sharply next to her.

The siren, which Kim had discovered was a missile warning system, had shut off seconds earlier. With its ear-shattering squeal gone the deafening roar of the engines and rotor now seemed to be little more than a pleasant background noise.

Kim grabbed her communicator off of the console she had left it on. "Wade... I don't know what you did... but you definitely continue to rock!"

"Just routed my call to General Simms through an encrypted phone network so it would have high priority."

"Did you call collect?" Ron asked from across the cockpit.

Once again, Kim and Wade ignored him. "I show you 20 miles or so from the sub. It should come into sight in about nine minutes."

"And then?" Kim coaxed.

"And then you land near it... you're going to need to get in front of it. If you touch down too far behind it, there is no way you'll be able to swim fast enough to catch up to it. I'm showing him making about twelve knots right now... that's about fourteen miles an hour."

An excited squawk from Rufus drew Kim's attention. She followed the naked mole-rat's extended arm to a speck on the horizon. Kim pulled a pair of binoculars out of her bag to take a closer look. Sure enough, she could make out the distinctive profile of a submarine.

"Good work, Rufus," Kim said, patting the naked rodent on the head.

"Cheese?" Rufus asked.

"When we get back," Kim said, "I'll get you cheese... don't worry." She shifted attention to the pilot. "Ron, turn left a little bit... you see the sub out there?"

"The black thingy?"

"That would be it."

"OK, we're goin' in."